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Best Mac Adblocker for PRIVACY and data protection? [MERGED]

johnkree said:
I was really pleasantly surprised how well Linix is running. PopOS by System76 is based on Ubuntu but they tweaked it a lot with their own version of Gnome. It's really well made and everything worked out of the box. And yes, you are absolutely right, it is not automatically safer or more private. But it has a lot of possibilities.
And it is awesome that you are in control of everything. I mean you can change every aspect of the UI to your liking without any hassle or fumbling in a registry.
Click to expand...

PopOS is one of those distros that I do not like. I really do not believe in making "yet another distro" . Some distros has a reason to exist like Arch (community independent from corporate), Linux Mint (for the simple user), or Puppy Linux but then you are hoards that are just bloat and more of the same thing like KDE Neon, PopOS, Garuda, Elementary, MX Linux, Solus...etc

I think most of these people instead of defragmenting the linux even further and starving for donations because they can not sustain their own, maybe get together and make a few linux varieties that work really work and are polished.
 
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Ad tracking may not be the only privacy problem for some users on MR. According to this Washington Post analysis, the forums on MacRumors are part of a Google-created dataset that is used to train AI products:

”…we analyzed Google’s C4 data set, a massive snapshot of the contents of 15 million websites that have been used to instruct some high-profile English-language AIs, called large language models, including Google’s T5 and Facebook’s LLaMA”
(forums.macrumors.com is listed under the sources for Technology, as the #4 site)
www.washingtonpost.com

Inside the secret list of websites that make AI like ChatGPT sound smart

An analysis of a chatbot data set by The Washington Post reveals the proprietary, personal, and often offensive websites that go into an AI’s training data.
www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
So, I’d say anybody here who is highly concerned about privacy or does not want their future posts used to train AI’s should review how they use MacRumors’ forums.
 
KaliYoni said:
Ad tracking may not be the only privacy problem for some users on MR. According to this Washington Post analysis, the forums on MacRumors are part of a Google-created dataset that is used to train AI products:

”…we analyzed Google’s C4 data set, a massive snapshot of the contents of 15 million websites that have been used to instruct some high-profile English-language AIs, called large language models, including Google’s T5 and Facebook’s LLaMA”
(forums.macrumors.com is listed under the sources for Technology, as the #4 site)
www.washingtonpost.com

Inside the secret list of websites that make AI like ChatGPT sound smart

An analysis of a chatbot data set by The Washington Post reveals the proprietary, personal, and often offensive websites that go into an AI’s training data.
www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
So, I’d say anybody here who is highly concerned about privacy or does not want their future posts used to train AI’s should review how they use MacRumors’ forums.
Click to expand...

as long as its anonymous no worries. Plus what we post here we already know we are making it public and for others to see. The worrisome is the stuff that happens in the background without you knowing like trackers in emails!
 
KaliYoni said:
I regard having our posts appear in search results to be different than having our posts used to train AI's.
Click to expand...
AI is the new Internet. Every big company will offer one sooner or later. And sure they will train their AI with user data. This is the Internet. Everything is public. Your ISP knows everything you do. Google knows who you are. Even if you don't use their services, if just one of your relatives or friends uses Google they have you phone number and everything they saved in your contacts profile. They have supercomputers connecting every data and making profiles. Microsoft is training their AI with all the data they can grasp and so is Google. And sooner or later maybe Apple will do this, too. We will see.
 
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KaliYoni said:
Ad tracking may not be the only privacy problem for some users on MR. According to this Washington Post analysis, the forums on MacRumors are part of a Google-created dataset that is used to train AI products:

”…we analyzed Google’s C4 data set, a massive snapshot of the contents of 15 million websites that have been used to instruct some high-profile English-language AIs, called large language models, including Google’s T5 and Facebook’s LLaMA”
(forums.macrumors.com is listed under the sources for Technology, as the #4 site)
www.washingtonpost.com

Inside the secret list of websites that make AI like ChatGPT sound smart

An analysis of a chatbot data set by The Washington Post reveals the proprietary, personal, and often offensive websites that go into an AI’s training data.
www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
So, I’d say anybody here who is highly concerned about privacy or does not want their future posts used to train AI’s should review how they use MacRumors’ forums.
Click to expand...
Based on far too many MacRumor poor, conflucting or unconstructive responses it will be an interesting challenge to see AI filtering out anything meaningful?
 
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johnkree said:
AI is the new Internet. Every big company will offer one sooner or later. And sure they will train their AI with user data. This is the Internet. Everything is public. Your ISP knows everything you do. Google knows who you are. Even if you don't use their services, if just one of your relatives or friends uses Google they have you phone number and everything they saved in your contacts profile. They have supercomputers connecting every data and making profiles. Microsoft is training their AI with all the data they can grasp and so is Google. And sooner or later maybe Apple will do this, too. We will see.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go that far if you practice good "privacy hygiene" . Your ISP can't see https traffic. Google might know who you are (which is ok because you exist) but they might not have a history of every key click, photo, sound, or movement you make.
 
AdGuard Family Plan: Lifetime Subscription - $24.97
https://shop.lifehacker.com/sales/adguard-family-plan-lifetime-subscription
"Important Details
Family Plan
Length of access: lifetime
This plan is only available to new users
Redemption deadline: redeem your code within 30 days of purchase
Max number of devices: 9
Access options: desktop & mobile
Software version: AdGuard Family
Updates included"

I don't use AdGuard, but it seems like a good deal for those who use it.
 
bogdanw said:
AdGuard Family Plan: Lifetime Subscription - $24.97
https://shop.lifehacker.com/sales/adguard-family-plan-lifetime-subscription
"Important Details
Family Plan
Length of access: lifetime
This plan is only available to new users
Redemption deadline: redeem your code within 30 days of purchase
Max number of devices: 9
Access options: desktop & mobile
Software version: AdGuard Family
Updates included"

I don't use AdGuard, but it seems like a good deal for those who use it.
Click to expand...
I simply run an instance of AdGuard Home [or PiHole] on the Synology box in a docker container.... takes almost no CPU or RAM. Free using already paid for stuff.
 
foo2 said:
I simply run an instance of AdGuard Home [or PiHole] on the Synology box in a docker container.... takes almost no CPU or RAM. Free using already paid for stuff.
Click to expand...
If I am not mistaken, the Home version of Adguard blocks at the DNS level and thus, isn't able to block all ads, especially YouTube. It seems to catch a lot, though.
 
Apple_Robert said:
If I am not mistaken, the Home version of Adguard blocks at the DNS level and thus, isn't able to block all ads, especially YouTube. It seems to catch a lot, though.
Click to expand...
That's correct. For more, WIPR (with the highest extension enabled) at $1.99 would handle that for me if I desired.

The Family AdGuard license also allows for protection when traveling; obviously (short of TailScale or a VPN) the Home Adguard doesn't do that.
 
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foo2 said:
That's correct. For more, WIPR (with the highest extension enabled) at $1.99 would handle that for me if I desired.

The Family AdGuard license also allows for protection when traveling; obviously (short of TailScale or a VPN) the Home Adguard doesn't do that.
Click to expand...

you can also set your device to the free dns adblocker numbers which are 194.140.14.14 and 194.140.15.15 iirc
 
I've had excellent service with NextDNS. Not OSS, but you can configure almost anything and it's cheap ($1.99/mo) for blocking ads and other junk at the DNS level. You can even pick which filters you want to use.
 
boswald said:
I've had excellent service with NextDNS. Not OSS, but you can configure almost anything and it's cheap ($1.99/mo) for blocking ads and other junk at the DNS level. You can even pick which filters you want to use.
Click to expand...

With nextDNS you have to relogin each time you change your IP (disconnect from the internet) unless there is another way of setting it up.
 
MacBH928 said:
With nextDNS you have to relogin each time you change your IP (disconnect from the internet) unless there is another way of setting it up.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure about disconnecting and getting a new IP at home because I never do it, but when you're on the go you can either download their custom network profile or install the app, which sets up a local VPN tunnel. I'm pretty sure you don't have to do anything.
 
boswald said:
I'm not sure about disconnecting and getting a new IP at home because I never do it, but when you're on the go you can either download their custom network profile or install the app, which sets up a local VPN tunnel. I'm pretty sure you don't have to do anything.
Click to expand...

maybe on ios they have an app but what about browsing via desktop? Windows? mac? Linux?
 
So I got myself a new Mac and I want to keep it clean. I had AdGuard installed on my old one, but it's a shady app that you need to give permissions to the core of your system.

But I have to say it was VERY efficient at removing ads. I never saw a single ad. And pages didn't look broken. Everything was super clean and very fast.

I miss it now on my old Mac, but I can't give such a shady app access to the core of my brand new Mac.

All these other solutions with DNS and I don't know what you guys suggested are too complicated for me.

Is there not an app that I can install and that doesn't have access to my personal stuff, but that also removes ads as well as AdGuard does?

And it's not just about filtering ads (it does need to do that perfectly), but especially also not doing potential shady things in the background. Those Adblock apps are often nasty. I think they bring more viruses to your computer than that malware they pretend to block. They ARE the malware, lol. So privacy is a huge thing for me.
 
Silly John Fatty said:
So I got myself a new Mac and I want to keep it clean. I had AdGuard installed on my old one, but it's a shady app that you need to give permissions to the core of your system.

But I have to say it was VERY efficient at removing ads. I never saw a single ad. And pages didn't look broken. Everything was super clean and very fast.

I miss it now on my old Mac, but I can't give such a shady app access to the core of my brand new Mac.

All these other solutions with DNS and I don't know what you guys suggested are too complicated for me.

Is there not an app that I can install and that doesn't have access to my personal stuff, but that also removes ads as well as AdGuard does?

And it's not just about filtering ads (it does need to do that perfectly), but especially also not doing potential shady things in the background. Those Adblock apps are often nasty. I think they bring more viruses to your computer than that malware they pretend to block. They ARE the malware, lol. So privacy is a huge thing for me.
Click to expand...
To answer your question, no, there is not. You are asking the same questions all over again.

I use 1Bocker but, I don't use the 1Blocker Actions extension option for security reasons. I still see a few ads sometimes but, nothing major.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
I use 1Bocker but, I don't use the 1Blocker Actions extension option for security reasons. I still see a few ads sometimes but, nothing major.
Click to expand...

Do you don't use the extension because browser extensions are said to be dangerous sometimes?

Apple_Robert said:
To answer your question, no, there is not. You are asking the same questions all over again.
Click to expand...

Well, some time has passed, some perhaps you guys had figured out something. :p Can't believe there's no such thing on the market. Someone is renouncing on huge money here.
 
Silly John Fatty said:
Do you don't use the extension because browser extensions are said to be dangerous sometimes?



Well, some time has passed, some perhaps you guys had figured out something. :p Can't believe there's no such thing on the market. Someone is renouncing on huge money here.
Click to expand...
I don't use the extension because it is a security risk for any extension to have access to, and be able to read highly sensitive information. I realize a lot of people give such power to extensions but, it's not prudent or safe.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
I don't use the extension because it is a security risk for any extension to have access to, and be able to read highly sensitive information. I realize a lot of people give such power to extensions but, it's not prudent or safe.
Click to expand...

That's what I read and that's why I don't want to use them either.
 
Silly John Fatty said:
So I got myself a new Mac and I want to keep it clean. I had AdGuard installed on my old one, but it's a shady app that you need to give permissions to the core of your system.

But I have to say it was VERY efficient at removing ads. I never saw a single ad. And pages didn't look broken. Everything was super clean and very fast.

I miss it now on my old Mac, but I can't give such a shady app access to the core of my brand new Mac.

All these other solutions with DNS and I don't know what you guys suggested are too complicated for me.

Is there not an app that I can install and that doesn't have access to my personal stuff, but that also removes ads as well as AdGuard does?

And it's not just about filtering ads (it does need to do that perfectly), but especially also not doing potential shady things in the background. Those Adblock apps are often nasty. I think they bring more viruses to your computer than that malware they pretend to block. They ARE the malware, lol. So privacy is a huge thing for me.
Click to expand...
The extension is modular, nor are you forced to check the boxes and for me AdGuard still blocks all adds without core access...

Q-6
 
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